Weatherford College and its ousted longtime coach find a solution for the future
A small junior college in Weatherford, Texas, created national attention when with one game remaining in the season it fired one of the longest-tenured coaches in the nation who wanted to return for one more year before retirement.
Weatherford College women’s basketball coach Bob McKinley was originally scheduled to have a grievance hearing with the school board Monday morning over his employment termination, which he received on March 3.
The meeting was canceled when the two sides came to an agreement over the weekend.
McKinley, 84, will not return for a final year of coaching, but he has agreed to a settlement. According to school sources, a formal announcement is expected soon, but the specifics of the agreement remain private.
According to multiple people familiar with the negotiations, the settlement included an agreement that will allow his granddaughter to remain enrolled in the school without cost to the family.
While McKinley did not sue the school for age discrimination, he did hire an attorney to help with the formal grievance process with Weatherford College. The school’s dismissal of the longtime coach who is popular both with the college and the small community west of Fort Worth created a backlash that surprised administrators.
It created an awkward situation within the community as McKinley has friends, and family, throughout the school. His son, Trey, is the chair of Weatherford College’s kinesiology department.
McKinley’s forced departure from the job is part of what has been the schoolwide turnover of several positions throughout the university. The school currently lists no coaches for its men’s or women’s basketball teams.
When McKinley was originally told he was fired with one game remaining in the season, his original goal was to file a grievance in order to return for a final year of coaching at the school. He had been told by the previous administration that he could have the job for as “long as he wants.”
“As long as he wants” apparently had an end date.
The reason the school said it fired him was because of the team’s performance, which over the past few seasons wasn’t bad, or terrible, but OK.
The move effectively concludes a career at the school that began in 1977, and a timeline in basketball that started in the late 1950s when he played at Bowie High School. He eventually played at TCU from 1962 to ‘64, after which he started his coaching career.
He started at Pasadena High School and then moved to Houston Baptist University. His next stop was his final stop — Weatherford College. McKinley coached the men’s basketball team for 18 years, and the women’s basketball team for the last 30 years; in six of those seasons he coached both teams. He also served as the school’s athletic director for 41 years, a position he eventually gave up to Jeff Lightfoot.
The team finished 16-11 in the 2025-26 season. In his tenure as the women’s basketball coach, the program won 16 conference titles, five regional championships with five national tournament appearances and one NJCAA Final Four. He also had 20 NJCAA All-Americans.
Bob McKinley is widely known and respected throughout basketball coaching community all over the United States.
As messy as the finale to his final season played out, do not be surprised if sometime next season Weatherford College makes an effort to honor one of its longest-tenured employees.
